1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to conferences and more specifically to changing conference moderators during an e-conference.
2. Introduction
In the business world, it is often necessary to conduct meetings with people at other physical locations, including those within the same company and those from different companies. E-conferencing is one method for a group of people to communicate with each other without physically being in the same location. An e-conference is an electronic conference that allows for one or more participants to conference over a telephone or other type of connection instead of requiring the participants to physically travel to the conference location. E-conferences can significantly reduce the costs of meeting since participants do not need to travel to the conference location. Many businesses and organizations utilize e-conferencing to accomplish their objectives more economically.
To schedule an e-conference, participants can send their availability to all other participants and a mutually agreed upon time and date for the e-conference to occur is established by the participants. Optionally, an e-conference participant or scheduler schedules the e-conference based on availability as indicated in a digital calendaring system. Typically, a participant is supplied a phone number and a code that allows them to access the e-conference. At the scheduled time, participants connect to the e-conference.
During an e-conference, a moderator typically leads the group discussion. Utilizing a moderator may be necessary in some systems for the group to accomplish their goals for the meeting. The moderator leads the discussion and the participants speak up at an appropriate time. Once the group accomplishes its objectives for the e-conference, the moderator ends the call. E-conferences are usually identified with a host and participant code, with the moderating entering the conference using a host code.
Oftentimes during the duration of an e-conference, it is necessary to change moderators for a variety of reasons. A moderator may need to attend another meeting, a moderator may not be interested in the discussion or a moderator may need to depart from a call temporarily. Traditionally, an e-conference must terminate in order to change moderators. Each participant in the e-conference must disconnect and then reconnect with a new moderator in place. This process is inefficient, cumbersome and time consuming.